The coming year will usher in national debate
about Big Data and consumer privacy.

There's reason to hope Ohio will finally
clean up its payday lending problem in 2014 -- but will the legislature allow another troubled industry to set up shop in here?

Among
the consumer issues that loom large in 2014:

Debt settlement

Continuing its long-running effort to weaken
state consumer laws by passing bogus "consumer protection" bills, the state
legislature has taken up the cause of the debt settlement industry.

Debt settlement companies encourage indebted
consumers to stop paying their bills in an attempt to force creditors to settle
for lesser amounts. Consumers often wind up with worse credit and even higher
debts – because after just one debt is settled, they're on the hook for debt
settlement fees and, gee, many creditors won't play ball.

The U.S. Department of Justice and the
Federal Trade Commission have warned of widespread scams in the industry, and
prominent members of the industry's trade group, the American Fair Credit
Council, have faced bans or criminal charges by states or fines for deceptive
practices by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Nonetheless, the Ohio House recently passed
an AFCC-championed "consumer protection" bill – HB 173 -- that eliminates the state's 8.5
percent cap on fees – a provision installed only a decade ago to keep consumers
from being fleeced for questionable "help." The measure now heads to the Senate.

It's unconscionable to strip consumer
protections away from struggling Ohioans during a period of protracted
unemployment.

The National Security Agency is creeping
through the phone records and emails of millions of us, without so much as a
warrant. The constitutionality of the program will likely be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. A
presidential review panel has recommended some curbs in NSA practices, and the
President is expected to announce what changes he plans in the coming month.

No less secretive are the practices of
commercial data brokers and online advertisers who amass and sell information
about our financial and health woes, our tastes in clothing and music and even our
deodorant brand.

When Target becomes so good at consumer profiling
that it can break the news of a teenager's pregnancy to her dad, stronger laws
are clearly in order.

The
Federal Trade Commission continues its series of workshops on the ways
companies compile information about consumers next year. The workshops could be
a precursor to better privacy protections.

Want to keep a closer eye on the folks who are keeping an eye on you? Sign up for the Electronic Privacy Information Center's bi-weekly privacy alerts at epic.org.

If 2013 was the year we began to grasp the creepy implications
of Big Data, 2014 is the year we citizens either stand up for our right to
personal privacy or surrender it.

Payday lending

The fight against abusive short-term lending
continues at the state and national level.

Ohio's Supreme Court will issue an important
payday ruling in 2014 – one that could, at last, force payday lenders to honor
the 28-percent interest-rate cap enacted by the state in 2008.

The case pits a Cash America
subsidiary, Ohio Neighborhood Finance, against a Lorain County borrower. A decision could come as early as this spring.

Through 2013, federal agencies from the
Federal Trade Commission to bank regulators took action against wayward payday
lenders – and you can expect that to continue in 2014.

Bank regulators
(with the notable exception of the Federal Reserve, the regulator for Fifth
Third bank) finalized rules that should bring an end to deposit advances, the
bank version of payday loans.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in
2013 took its first enforcement actions against payday lenders and released the
results of a deep-dive into payday lenders' records and confirmed that – as
consumer advocates have long contended -- borrowers often wound up borrowing
repeatedly, a classic sign of predatory lending.

Look for some type of preliminary payday
rules from the CFPB in the coming year.

Debt
collection

The CFPB said in November it's considering
new rules for debt collectors. More than 40 percent
of complaints to the CFPB about collectors said people were being pursued for
debts they do not owe. The agency is
exploring whether requiring more documentation to travel with a debt as it changes
hands would reduce collection errors. It's also looking at
requiring first-party debt collectors, who are exempt from the Fair Debt Collection
Practices Act, to follow the same rules as the hired guns who collect debts
owed to others.

Be prepared, though. Debt
collectors want some changes to the rules, too -- including a go-ahead to use social media
and texts to contact debtors.

Arbitration

The U.S. Senate has again picked up the issue of arbitration in
consumer contracts. These clauses, which now appear in everything from phone to
credit card contracts, force consumers to give up their right to take
disputes to court. Instead, consumers must agree in advance to take disputes to arbitration, a forum
that favors corporations.

The CFPB is looking at using its authority to create rules for
arbitration clauses in financial contracts, but it will take an act of Congress to restore citizens' rights to take their grievances to court across
the board.

Can a dysfunctional Congress get the job done? We'll find out in
2014.

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